I have a granddaughter! Since I still look at my sons, now 32 and 29 and on their own since college, and can't fathom where they came from, having a grandchild is truly confounding.
A few weeks ago, Leah and her parents were coming to the Valley, as Andrew and Emily were going to a banquet. Andrew's best friend since middle school, Joey, er Joseph, was being inducted into their high school baseball hall of fame, as Andrew was last year. Grandpa John, Leah's daddy's dad, and Bonus Grandma Andrea, Leah's daddy's bonus mom, were going to babysit, and Doug and I were to show up the next morning for Leah time. However, as we were just getting back to the Valley from a visit in Seattle with Doug's daughter, Katie, and her husband, Javier, rather than going home to Visalia, forty miles southeast of Fresno, and driving back to Fresno the next morning, we asked John and Andrea if they'd mind if we stopped at their home for the night.
("They" say that too many names in a story make it confusing for the reader. Well, I'm sure Leah will get the hang of her six grandparents and numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, first-cousins-once-removed, second cousins, and everyone's pets quite handily, so we adults should be able to keep straight a bunch of names, too.)
We offered to sleep in the MRV ("merv," Marilyn's RV, but that's another story) in their driveway, but they insisted we stay in their other guest room. It was a good idea we did. Leah would have been terribly bored had she only two grandparents to test. She's a precocious 3.5-month-old (now 5 months)...of course!
Andrew and Emily turned Leah over to the grandparents before they left, to see if we could handle it and/or to ease Leah into their absence. We'd all spent plenty of time holding Leah in the past, but always with mom and dad around. I was watching Emily, who appeared a bit anxious about leaving, which I totally understand. Doug, as I learned later, was watching Andrew, who he said was watching him and whom he deemed more worried than Emily. In any case, satisfied enough at what they observed, Andrew and Emily departed.
Leah had not had a happy 3-hour car ride down, and she does not suffer being annoyed quietly. Plus she was fighting a bit of a cold and some gas. Grandpa John held her a bit, but didn't get far in settling his granddaughter. He and Bonus Grandma Andrea put her in her sleepbag as her parents had suggested and tried to give her her bottle of mom's delicious milk, but Leah expressed little interest.
I offered to hold her, sure that I could work grandma miracles. Deciding she was both hot and wet, I changed her and left off the sleepbag. So far, so good. But I'm the vertically challenged grandma, and given that she wasn't interested in calmly settling into me, I handed Leah off to Bonus Grandpa Doug. In my defense, I had surgery to decompress and fuse my cervical spine last summer and experienced a few complications that have left me not yet able to handle everything that comes my way, especially if she is strong and moving.
I immediately felt badly for not handing Leah to Grandpa John—Doug was closer—but John graciously said no problem, he'd step up for the later innings. With a glass of red wine in hand and Leah tucked into his other arm, alternately sucking her thumb and protesting, Doug crooned to her. He disposed of the small white lamb whose insides are a mechanical music box, and which I thought I should like to have in bed with me. After several innings, with Doug's position changing from sitting, to reclined with legs splayed out in front of him, to lying on the couch with his legs hanging over the arm, bonus grandpa and bonus granddaughter slept soundly, while John, Andrea, and I watched from the dining room.
(At first hesitant about "intruding" on Leah's time with her "real" grandparents—John and me—Doug has smiled many times since that he bonded with Leah. I shouldn't say I knew he would, given his propensity to focus on children and dogs before acknowledging any adults who may be with said children or dogs.)
All was peaceful for a while. We took Doug some food. Leah slept. We watched. We ate. We drank wine. Andrew texted to see how we were and to say they'd be later than they thought.
Leah awoke—the seventh inning stretch. I'd stopped observing her long enough to take my first real shower in a couple of days, and was sure I could now leap tall buildings while holding my granddaughter. She did calm down and study me a bit while I changed her clothes and diaper, so I thought, Well, we'll just lie here on the bed next to each other. That drew an emphatic, No va, Grandemamacita!
So I held Leah closely, rocking in her Great-Grandpa McDaniel's cherry rocker, the same one I had rocked her daddy and uncle Stephen in, and she fell asleep with her head on my shoulder, sucking her thumb, her other arm resting on my other shoulder, and all the while my face was moist and I was sniffling, which alarmed Andrea. She was worried about my neck and back, but I assured her I was fine. All I could feel was a warm breathing little person at peace on my chest and my heart impossibly huge.
A little slow in my perceptions at times, when Andrew and Emily arrived home, it took me a couple of minutes to realize I should relinquish Leah to her mommy, for the sake of both of them, for it was a bit long for a nursing mother to be gone. In the morning, it was completely understandable that Leah's parents were not as generous in sharing her as usual, but they did praise our collective grandparenting skills, and we grandparents were quite content to observe.
How is it that my love for my grandchild is somehow impossibly deeper still than the infinite love I have for my children? And, too, I have been blessed with two wonderful women who not only adore my sons, but who love me as well, as I do them.
As I write this, I am at my brother and sister-in-law's in Concord awaiting Andrew, Emily, and Leah's arrival. Today Leah will meet more of her family, blood and otherwise, who welcome and celebrate her with great love and joy.
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